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Selections: Dublin Address

Selections: Dublin Address image
Parent Issue
Day
27
Month
November
Year
1843
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

T.e fbllowing address was adopted at the Dublin Repeal Associatiun, on the llih October, iri reply to the address o: tle Cincinnati Associalion on the subjec of slavery: CornExchange Rooms, ) Dublin, llth Oct 1843. $ Gentlemen:- We have read with the deepest affliction, not unmixed with some surprise and much indignation, you detailed and anxious vindication of the most hideous crime that has ever stained humanity - the slavery of men of coIoj in the United States of America. We are lost in utter amazement at the per version of mind and depravity of hear which your address evinces. How can the generous, the charitable, the humane the noble emotions of the Irish heart have become extinct amongst you? .How can your ntïture be so totally changed as tha you should become the apologists and ad vocates of that execrable system which makes man the property of his fellow man - destroys the foundation of all moral anc social virtues - condemns to ignorance immorality, and irreligión, millions of our fellow creatures - renders the slave hope less of relief, and perpetuates oppression by law, and in the name of-what you cal a constitution?It was not in Ireland you learned this cruelty. Your mothers were gentle, kind and humane. Their bosoms overflowec with the honey of human charity. Your sisters are probably many of them stil amongst us, and particípate in all that is good and benevolént in sentiment and action. How then can you have become so depraved? How can your souls have become stained with a darkness blacker than a negro's skin? You say you have no pecuniary interest in negro slavery would that you had! for it might be sorae palliation of your crime! but, alas! you have inflicted upon us the horror of beholding 3'ou the volunteer advocates of despotism in its most frightful state; of slavery in its most loathsome and unrelenting form. We were, unhappily,preparedto expect some fearful exhibition of this description. There has been a testimony borne against the Irish, by birth or descent, in America, jy a person fully informed as to the facts, ind incapable of the slightest misrepresentation - a noble of nature more than of titled birth - a man gifted with the lighest order of talent and the most generous emotions of the heart - the great, the good Lord Morpeth; he, who in the rlouse of Commons boJdly asserted the superior social morality of the poorer classes of the Irish over any other peoïle - he. the best friend of any of the Saxon race that Ireland or the Irish ever knew- he, amidst congregated thousands at Exeter Hall, in London, mournfully but firmly denounced the Irish in America as jeing amongnst the worst enemies of the nogro slaves and other men of color. It is, therefore, our solenm and sacred luty to wam you, in words already used, and much misunderstood by you, to come out of her, not thereby meaning to ask you to come out of America! but out of he councils of the iniquitous, and out of he congregation of the wicked, who conider man a chattel and a property, and iberty an inconvenience. Yes, we teil you ter come out of such assemblages, but ve did not and do not invite you to return o Ireland. The volunteer defenders ofslavery, surrounded by tfríe thousand crines, would find neither sympathy nor support amongst native uncontaminated Irishmen; You teil us with an air of triumph, that public opinión in your country, is the great lawgiver. If it be so, how niuch does it enhance the guilt of your conduct, that you seek to turn public opinión against the slave and in favor of the slaveholder! - that you laud the master -as génerous and humahe, and disparage, as much as you can, the unhappy slave, influencing, as Irish men oughl to do, the public mind ■ in favor of the -oppressed. You carry your exaggerations to a ludicrous pitclv, denoting your utter ignorance of the history of the human race. You say 'that the negro is really inferior as a race; tl a. slave ry has stamped its debasing influence upon the Africans; that between him and the white almost a century would be required to elévate the character of the one, and to destroy the antipathies of the other.' - You add - we use your wovds - "The very odor of the negro ís almost insufferable to the white, and, however much humanity may lament it, we mak e no rash declaration when we say the two races cannot exist together on equal terms under our governraent and our institutions.' We quote this paragraph at full length because it is replete with your mischiev ous errors and guilty mode of thinking. In the first place, as to the odor of the negroes,ve are quite aware that they havenot as yet come to use much of the otto of roses or eau de Cologne But we im plore of your fastidiousness to recollec that multitudes of the children of white men have negro women for their mothers and that our British travellers complain in loud and bitter terms, of thé overpow ering stencil of stale tobáceo spittle, as the prevailing 'odor' amongst the nativ free Ámericans. It would be, perhaps better to check that nasal sensibility on both sidesj on the parts of whites as ye' as of blacks. But it is. indeed, deplorabl that you should use a ludicrous assertio of that description as one of the induce ments to prevent the abolition of slavery The negroes would certainly smell a least as sweet when free as they do no being slaves. Have you enough of the genuine Irish men amongst you to ask what it is we re quire you to do? It is this: First - We cali upon you in the sacred name ofhumanity neveragain to vol un teer on behalf of the oppressor, nor even for any self interest to vindícate the hide ous crime of personal slavery. Secondly - We ask you to assist in ev ery way you can in promoting the edu catión of the free man of color, and in discountenancing the foolish feeling o; selfishness, which makes the white man treat the man of color as degraded or in ferior being. Thirdly - We ask you to assist in ob taining for the free men of color, the ful benefit of all the rights and franchises o a freeman, whatever state he may inhab it. . Fourthly - We ask you to exert your selves ín endeavoring to procure for the man of color in every case the benefit o; trial byjury, and especially wherea man insisting that he is a freeman is claimec to be a si ave. Fifthly - We ask you to exert your selves in every possible way to induce slave owners to emancípate as many slaves as possible. The Quakers in Amer ica have several societies for this pürpose Why should not the Irish imítate them in that virtue? Sixthly - We ask you to exert yourselves in all the waysyou possibly can to put an end to the internal slave trade of the States. The breeding of slaves for sale is probably the most immoral & debasing practice ever known in this world. It is a crime of the most hideous kind; and if there were no other crime committed by the Ámericans, this alone would place the advocates, supporters, and practisers of American slavery in the lowest grade of crimináis.Seventhly - We ask you to usc every exertion in your power to procure the abolition of slavery by the Congress in the District of Columbia. Eighthly - We ask you to use your best exertions to compel the Congress tb revise and read the petitions of the wretched negroes, and above al), the petitions of their white advocates. Ninthly - We ask you never to ceasc vour cfforts until the crime of which Lord Vlorpeth has asserted the the Irish in America, 'of being the worst encmies of nen of color,' shall be aioned tbr, and bloted out and effaced forever. You will ask how you cando all these hings - you have already answerecf that [uesfïon yoürselves,for you have said that ublic opinión is the law of America.- Contribute, then, each of you inhis sphere, o make up the public opinión. Where you have the electorial franchise, giveyour votes to none hut ïtiose who nrlj] assist you in so lioly a struggle. 'We wish we couldburn into yoursouls the turpitude attached to the Irish in America by Lord Morpetlfs "charge. Recollect that it reflectsdishonor not only upon you, but upon the land of your birth. - There is but one way of effecting sucb disgrace, and that is, by becoming the most kindly towards the colored population; and the most cnergetic in working out in detail, as well as in general principie, an amelioration of the state of the miserable bondsmen. You teil us, indeed, trmt many clergymen, and especially the Catho-ic clergy-, men, are ranged on the side of the slaveholders. W.e do not bol i . tion. The Catholic Clergy may endure, but they assuredly do not encourogc, the slave owners. We have, indeed, heard it said that some Catholic clergy man is a slave owner. At all events, every Catholic knows how distinctly slave holding, and especially slave trading, is condemned by the Catholic Church. That most eminent man - his Iloliness the present Pope, has, by an allocution, published throughout the world, condemned all dealing and trafFic in slaves. Nothing can be more distinct nor more powerful than the Pope's denunciation of that most abominable crime. Yet it. subsists in a more abominable form than his Holmess could possibly describe, in the traffic which still exists in the sale of slaves from one State of America to another. - What, then, are we to think of you. Irish Catholics, who send us an elabórate vindication of slavery without the slightest censure of that haieful crime - a crime which the Pope has so completely condemned - namely, the diabolical raising of slaves for sale, and selling them to other' States. If you be Catholics you shall devote your time and best exertions lo working out the pious intentions of his Holiness. Yet you prefer! - oh! sorrow and shame! - to volunteer your vindication of every thing that belongsto theguilt of slavery. We conclude by conjurmg yon, anc other Irishmen in AroGrica, in the name of your father-Jand - in. the name of humanity - in the name of the God of mercy and charity. we conjure you, Irishmen and descendants of Irishmen, to abandon for ever all defence of the hideous negro slavery system. Let it no more be said that your feelihgs are made so obtuse by the air of America that you cannot feel, this tfuth - this plain truth - that one man cannot have any property in another man. There is not one of you who does not recognize that principie in his own person; yet we perceive - and this agonizes us ahcost to madness - that you, boastir r an Irish descent, should, without the instigation of any pecuniary or interested motive, but one of the sheer and single love of wickedness and crime, come forward as the volunteer defenders of the most degrading species of human slavery. Woe! woe! woe! There is one consolation still, nmid the pulsations ofour hearts; there are, there must be, genuine Irishmen in America - men of sound heads and Irish hearts- who will assist us to wipe offthefouli stain that Lord Morpeth's proven charge has inflicted on the Irish character - who will hold out the hand of fellowship, with a heart in that hand, to every honest man, of every caste and color, who wil! sustain the cause of humanity and honor, and scorn the pal f ry advocates cfslavery__-who will show that the Irish heart is in America as benevolent, and as replete with charitable emotions. as in any other clime on the face of the earth. We conclude. The spirit of democratie liberty is defiled by the continuance of negro slavery in the United States. The United States themselves are degraded below the most uncivilized nations bythe atrocious inconsistency. of talking of liberty and practising tyranny in its worst shape. The. Americans attompt to palliate their iniquity by the iutilo exf-use of )ersonal interest: but the Iri.sh, vho have not even that futile excuse and yetjusify slavery, are uftorly indefensibie. Once again, and for the last. time. wc all upon vou.to comeóüt of the councils f the slave-owners, and at all events, to ree yourselves from p.-irtieipating in their uilt. Irishmen, I cali on you to join in rushing slavery and giving iibertv to evrv man, of everv caste. creed, and color.

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Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News